How to make an equity investor: global survey evidence

Whether to participate in the stock market and how much wealth to allocate in the stock market is an important determinant of individual wealth accumulation over lifetime. Still, observed differences in household portfolios are poorly understood. Extraordinarily little is known about cross-country differences and which reasons for equity investment are common across countries and which reflect local institutions and culture. We ask individuals for their stated reasons on what determines their portfolio equity share. We plan to cover at least 20 countries in a Global Household Financial Beliefs and Preferences Survey (GHFBPS) and build a dataset available to researchers worldwide. In our research building on the survey dataset, we cover earlier factors hypothesized in finance literature to be relevant for portfolio choice, but also tax treatment of equity returns and climate risk.